Corruption is Nigeria's biggest challenge. It is clear to every citizen that the level of corruption in the country is high. It's found in every sector of society. Be it a small or big sector, there is every possibility of observing corrupt practices when critically examined.
What is corruption? It's the dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery. It is the illegitimate use of power to benefit a private interest (Morris 1991). Corruption is the giving of a bribe to an official so that the truth will not be told. It involves the embezzlement of public fund for personal use and any act which is considered to be criminal act according to the law of a particular society.
Corruption is potent cancer that has mercilessly eaten Nigeria to a state of stupor-Professor Peter U. Nwangwu.
Review on the Corrupt State
Nigeria, which is the most populated country in Africa, has been ranked high in corruption by Transparency International and other notable organizations that monitor corrupt practices around the world. They do not have anything good to say about Nigeria at all. High corruption rankings affect almost all Nigerians who migrate to foreign countries, as foreigners have the perception that since Nigeria is corrupt, so are all Nigerians.
In the year 2000, Transparency International carried out a survey on the corruption levels of 90 countries, including Kenya, Cameroon, Angola, Nigeria, Côte-d'Ivoire, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, Zambia, India, Venezuela, Moldova, and others. At the end of the ranking, Nigeria was seen as the most corrupt in that ranking because the country occupied the 90th position in terms of transparency. Nigeria was the most corrupt country in the year 2000.
In 2001, Nigeria was ranked the second-most corrupt nation in the world out of 91 countries, falling only to Bangladesh. This shows that corruption in Nigeria improved by one step when compared with that of 2000.
Still from the same source, in the year 2002, Nigeria has again ranked the second-most corrupt country in the world, after the organization surveyed 102 countries. Nigeria was seen at the bottom, occupying the 101st position in terms of Confidence Interval (CI).
In 2003, Nigeria received the same ranking, making no improvements from 2003.
2004's ranking showed a little improvement when compared to the past four years. Nigeria was ranked the third most corrupt country in the world in that year, performing better than Bangladesh and Haiti. That year, 146 nations were surveyed.
The record on the corruption in Nigeria really improved in 2005. The number of countries surveyed by the Transparency International was 158. Nigeria was ranked eighth most corrupt.
More countries were surveyed by Transparency International in 2006. 163 countries were surveyed that year. The results showed some improvement, and Nigeria was ranked the 21st most corrupt country in the world. Haiti was the world's most corrupt nation that year.
Among the 180 countries surveyed in 2007, Nigeria ranked 147 on the table along side with Angola and Guinea-Bissau. This result shows that Nigeria was 33rd most corrupt country in the world.
An analysis of the anti-graft/anti-corruption laws in Nigeria shows that corruption will continue in spite of the law because the perpetrators do not fear any consequences (Oyinola 2011).
In 2012, Transparency International again deemed Nigeria one of the most corrupt nations in the world again (Uzochukwu 2013). In that year, the country ranked 139th out of the 176 surveyed countries, making Nigeria the 37th most corrupt nation.
In 2013, Nigeria ranked 144 out of 177 surveyed countries in terms of transparency. The score made Nigeria 33rd most corrupt country in the world that year. The result published by the organization also showed that Nigeria scored 25% out of 100 in terms of transparency.
In the 2014 ranking, Nigeria is ranked 136 out 174 surveyed countries (Transparency International 2014). The result shows that there is an improvement, though things are still bad. Nigeria was the 38th most corrupt country in the world in 2014.
With the emergence of a new government in the year 2015, many Nigerians were having great faith that corruption in the country will be minimized. In that year, power left the hands of People's Democratic Party (PDP) to All Progressive Congress (APC). One of the campaign promises made by the present President Muhammadu Buhari was the massive eradication of corruption in the country. Irrespective of the campaign promises, Nigeria ranked low in transparency and high in corruption in that year. In the year 2015, out of the 168 countries surveyed, Nigeria was seen at the bottom of the table in the category of number 136. This implies that Nigeria was the 32nd most corrupt country in the world in 2015.
Over two-thirds of the 176 countries and territories surveyed in the 2016 year index fall below the midpoint of Transparency International scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). In that year's survey, Nigeria sat at number 136 on the table with Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Myanmar, and Papua New Guinea. From calculation, it shows that Nigeria and the mentioned countries were ranked 40th most corrupt in 2016.
Nigeria failed when it came to transparency in the country. By contrast, in 2013, Denmark and New Zealand scored highest at 91% each, meaning the countries are clean and have higher Confidence Intervals than Nigeria. In the other words, Nigeria is highly corrupt.
Corruption in Nigeria wears many kinds of unattractive and dirty clothes. The situation has made so many people feel a lot of pains as the money which would have been used to reduce poverty in the country are being channeled into the pockets of a small group of persons.
What can we say about the $2.1 billion arms deal? The money which was budgeted for the purchase of arms in the fight against Boko Haram insurgency group in the country all of a sudden disappeared. Whether the fund developed legs and ran away is what the Federal Government of Nigeria could not explain to the citizenry.
The stain of corruption did not spare anti-graft agencies as former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, was accused of fraudulently diverting over N1tn proceeds from corruption recovered by the agency (Adeyemi 2016). This is incredible as those who were appointed to fight corruption in the country are also found as the victim of the same problem they fight. That is to say, that trust is difficult in the country.
Corruption is not only experienced among the Presidents of the country because many governors have been found guilty of it. It is like a disease that spreads from mother to children. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Nyako, the former governor of Adamawa and seven others, including companies, are standing trial before Justice Okon Abang on a 37-count charge bordering on money laundering. The news was published on December 1, 2016 (Pulse 2016). The governor opened 30 different accounts in Zenith bank of Nigeria using different names whose aim is to siphon funds. Among the offenses tendered against the ex-governor are a criminal conspiracy, abuse of office, an opening of multiple bank accounts and stealing to the tune of N29 billion (twenty-nine billion naira).
The former president of the country, Olusegun Obasanjo, on November 24, 2016, while speaking at the first Akintola Williams Annual Lecture in Lagos, reacted negatively on the level of corruption going on among the members of the House of Assembly and House of Representatives. Quoting from the writings of Jola Sotubo "Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo has described the National Assembly as a den of corruption (Jola 2016)". Part of the speech deliver by the ex-president which hammered on the level of corruption among the members of the house has it thus:
“Members of the National Assembly pay themselves allowances for staff and offices they do not have or maintain. Once you are a member, you are co-opted and your mouth is stuffed with rot and corruption that you cannot opt out as you go home with not less than N15 million a month for a senator and N10 million a month for a member of the House of Representatives".
According to Lewis Obi, the National Assembly is nothing but a business enterprise and the primary objective of the members is to make money for themselves. He went further as he explained that the National Assembly of the country is the highest paid legislature in the world. The Chamber earns more than that of United States of America and yet American economy is far much better than that of Nigeria. According to the documentation, United States senators make an approximate annual income of $174,000.00 while that of Nigeria is $2,183, 685.00 (reported via Authoritative Economist Magazine). You cannot imagine the degree of disparity between the two
Faces of Corruption
Corruption takes many forms and can be interpreted by many people in many ways. It is hard to enter any sector in Nigeria without observing one corrupt practice or the other. The areas where corruption is observed are not only in the public sector or in politics. Sincerely, the faces are much.
Political Corruption
Books have been written, people have talked, and press companies have been writing on the high level of corruption in Nigeria politics, yet the political perpetrators pretend as if they are not the people being talked about. They feel they are above the law.
Corruption takes many shapes, starting with embezzlement, bribery, rituals, rigging in elections and so on. In fact, corruption is highest in the political system. In both the Senate and the House of Representatives, corruption is seen as normal. Where do we start among politicians? It is because of the “wicked level” of corruption that makes both the youths and the old struggle to find themselves in one political party or the other. They believe that once they occupy any position in politics, even the smallest, they will use corrupt tricks to fill their pockets with public funds.
Embezzlement of public funds is common. Many leaders have helped boost the economies of other nations by depositing embezzled money in foreign banks. Facts and figures have shown that on many occasions, the men who rule the country have embezzled funds into foreign banks.
Political corruption is persistent in the Nigerian state. Since the creation of modern public administration in the country, there have been cases of official misuse of resources for personal enrichment (Storey Report 2014). After the death of the former president, President Sani Abacha, an investigation was carried out to detect the amount of money he embezzled in gas plant construction in the country. The investigations led to the freezing of accounts containing about $100 million United States dollars (Hector 2004) that he stole. The Abacha administration in the 1990s notoriously loots upwards of $3 billion (Uzochukwu 2013).
As of a few years back, whenever it was time for an election in Nigeria, small children in the country began to go missing. Child-missing during that period was rampant and parents were usually advised to guide and guard their children against ritualists. But why was it like that and what were the children used for? This is another face of corruption that breaks the hearts of mothers. The missing children were used by contesting politicians to perform ritual killings in order to get protections and other devilish powers that will enable them to win elections. This is corruption and wickedness in the highest order because it involves the termination of human life. Those who take part in that practice have their children at home and went on capturing and killing the children of others. It is not as if this has stopped, but it has slowed down.
Election rigging is not an unheard-of phenomenon. During elections, the contestants hire thugs who go around the election polling stations to highjack the ballot boxes. When they steal these boxes, they then use their hands to vote for their candidate. In the recent times, the new tactics that the contestants have adopted are buying voter’s cards so that they can manipulate and use the cards for their own advantages.
On many occasions, politicians have bribed some top officials to do wrong things to their favor. Some political leaders, including governors and presidents, have been sued by opponents, but the sued followed the back door, bribing barristers and judges. At the end of the judgment, the leader who bribed won in the case.
Corruption in Universities and Colleges
It is not new to any real Nigerian to hear that corruption parades itself in universities, polytechnics, and colleges. There are certain things that lecturers do that deserve “hot punishment.” Most lecturers use the opportunity they have to take advantage of others. Harassment of women by lecturers and pressure to sleep with them is common. The most painful part of it is that some of them are married, yet they are not satisfied. After some of the female undergraduates submit to the lecturer's request, they are rewarded with good grades.
Universities have been crying about a number of funds allocated to them. A lecturer in a university located in Anambra State on the nature of the poor standard of the foundry in the department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering has this to say: “What makes our foundry to be of a low standard is...corruption. An organization gave the department some money that would have been more than enough to upgrade and standardize the foundry, but I do not know what the management of the department did with the money.” Corruption is one of the biggest challenges faced by the education system.
How do some students find their ways into the universities? Some are there not by merit, but through a kind of bribery called sorting. Some rich men in the country bribe vice-chancellors and heads of departments to secure admission for their children. When this kind of dirty practice is conducted, those who would have made it on merit are cheated, as no admission will be offered to them. Every university in Nigeria has a quota (maximum number of students) they can admit each year.
Corruption in the Police Force
Where do we start when it comes to the nature of corruption observed in the police? Do we start with the bribery, intimidation, sexual harassment of the young inmates in the prisons, or turning truths upside down? There is a saying that “police are your friends”; in Nigeria, policemen are your enemies because they can deny the truth and collect bribes to do so. Because of the encounter, many Nigerians have had with policemen, even the good ones among them are generalized as being bad. What a shame.
The police who work in some checkpoints on the expressways cannot do so without collecting of bribes from car owners and drivers. Their interest is to collect money from road users and not to secure the road. Bribes become compulsory even when your particulars are in order. Bus drivers must offer money before they continue with their transportation business, be it fifty naira (₦50 = $0.31) or twenty naira (₦20 = $0.12). The police are now turning to gods that receive money from the worshipper as an offering.
Some women prison inmates went into prisons singled to come out doubled. What this implies is that the policemen use the opportunity they have to assault women who are imprisoned. The women may say no, but because the policemen have guns, the women could not do anything. They were impregnated before they were granted bail. What kind of prayer will erase this kind of abomination
Corruption in Nigerian Football
Corruption is like a curse laid upon us by an unknown person. Even in football has corruption. Players are not chosen by merit. It is all about who you know in top political offices or society.
In the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), corruption is the reason why Mr. A is elected as the leader of the group today and tomorrow the election is nullified and Mr. B was chosen. Everybody wants to be at the head so that he will fill his bag with the national cake. People do not fight to work because it is stressful, so whenever people fight for a particular position, there is every possibility that they are there to clean out the organization.
Reports and evidence have shown that there are corrupt practices in Nigerian football. A BBC news report said this: “A senior football official and a club administrator have been banned for 10 years following their involvement in corruption, the football authority has announced” (BBC Sports News 2013). Match-fixing and corruption is a problem in Nigerian football and has lead to sanctions against a number of clubs, referees and officials (Oluwashina 2013).
A referee ( the name was withdrawn) who is currently a Catholic priest serving in a parish in Anambra, once gave his experience on the level of corruption in football. According to the priest, he said that he narrowly escaped death when he officiated a match in the local league. He stated: “After the first half of the match, none of the two sides scored any goal. Before the beginning of the second half, some officials and young youths who were supporting the club at home side came and said to me: if you want to leave this pitch alive, make sure that you do anything possible to see that our club win this match.” The young referee was scared of the threat and finally, the home side won the match with a lone goal. The inability of Super Eagles of Nigeria to qualify for 2015 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) can be attributed to corruption.
Corruption in Churches
When churches are corrupt, what hope do Nigerians have? The truth is that not all the churches in the country have equal corruption strength. Corruption is witnessed mainly in the “new generation churches.” New generation churches in this context are those churches which do not have solid origin or foundation. They are not like Catholic, Anglican, or Orthodox churches. New generation churches are those churches which start when a person who calls himself a pastor goes and rents a room, decorates it, and convinces people to join him, that he has been given powers to summon signs and miracles from God.
Imagine how a man that have been dying of hunger for years claims that you should come to him that he has been called and can transform your financial status. It is the common thing they usually say that make hungry Nigerians yield to their deceptions. The people come and the so-called pastors use their tricks to collect the money that is remaining in the pockets of the poor ones in the country.
Some of the pastors go to the extent of using magical and devilish powers in running their church business in the name of God’s power. They give the congregations what they want without them knowing the source of their so-called power. If it is for women who are in search of babies, the babies may be given to them through devilish powers but continue to cause headaches to the children’s parents till death. Today, one of the children will steal money from a bank through armed robbery and tomorrow kill an innocent person, operating under the influence of the devil.
Pastors have on many occasions been caught in adultery and fornication. It is not new and it is certain that you as a reader have heard about such shameful acts. Through newspapers, televisions, and other channels, the immoral acts committed by Nigerian pastors have been observed. In early November of 2014, there was a radio program from Blaze FM, Orifite, on a pastor that impregnated an 11-year-old girl. According to the report, the girl was impregnated by the pastor when her mother took her to the pastor’s place for prayers, and left for her own business.new generation
Causes of Corruption
A number of things cause corruption, and among them are:
Greed
Poor youth empowerment
Poverty
Unemployment
Greed
Greed has caused a lot of crises in the world, including in Nigeria. It is because of greed that political leaders embezzle from the funds they are supposed to use for national development for their own selfish needs.
Poor Youth Empowerment
Poor moral youth empowerment is a contributor to corruption. Internet fraud, sexual harassment by male CEOs, and other bad acts are because Nigerians lack understanding on the importance of youth empowerment. When parents and governments empower youths both financially and morally, the level of corruption among them will diminish.
Poverty
According to international standards of poverty, a person is said to be poor when he lives under $1.25 (₦210, though it varies) per day. There are many poor people in Nigeria, and poverty pushes them into corruption. According to World Bank Group, in 2004, 63.1% of Nigerians were poor. The poverty level increased in 2010. In 2010, 68% of the Nigerian population were estimated to be poor. A person can take bribes to commit crime because he is poor. It is one of the reasons why the poor youths in the country collect bribes to work as thugs for Nigerian politicians.
Unemployment
Unemployment is one of the major challenges in Nigeria and does not need much explanation because it has broken the hearts of many citizens. People are pushed into corrupt practice because of high unemployment. An unemployed citizen can indulge in corruption to make money and live better.
The youths, fathers and mothers are seriously lamenting on the negative impact of unemployment in their lives. Some said that it is better for death to come and take their lives than suffering under the torment of unemployment challenge in the country. Words cannot explain the level of punishment the citizens of this country are as a result of this menace.
Effects of Corruption
The negative consequences of corruption are many, and among them are:
Poor investment
Rise in poverty
Poor national development
National crises
Poor Investment
Unemployment in Nigeria would have been eradicated to some extent if only investors were attracted to it. Companies that would have invested in Nigeria are afraid because they do not know if the corrupt practice will ruin their industries in time. Because of this, they refuse to invest in Nigeria.
Rise in Poverty
When the heads of public service are busy laundering the money that is supposed to be used to create employment for the masses and reduce poverty, what happens is that there will be a rise in the poverty level of the country. Just like the rise in poverty as statistically shown between 2004 and 2008. Since the government is selfish and does not want to help the poor, poverty continues to rise in Nigeria.
Poor National Development
Any country with high corruption is likely to experience developmental bankruptcy. A situation where some CEOs indulge in corrupt practices to make their money means that economic development will suffer. When Nigerians keep on shifting the country’s currency to foreign countries, there will be less economic development in Nigeria
Eradicating Corruption
Corrupt Nigerians do not truly understand the harm they are causing to other citizens. Corruption can be reduced by these possible remedies:
Self-Satisfaction
Institution of strong anti-corruption groups
Employment generation
Proper government funding of schools
Treating all citizens equally
Self-Satisfaction
Self-Satisfaction in this context implies being content with what one has. When the leaders of Nigeria are satisfied with the salary they are paid and use them in the right way, the issue of embezzlement and money laundering will be history. Managers who are satisfied with what they are paid will not have time to indulge in corruption to make more money.
Institution of Strong Anti-Corruption Groups
Creating strong anti-corruption institutions is another arsenal to win the fight against corruption. This group is to work independently with the government to ensure transparency. Anyone who is caught in corrupt practice by the group should experience the consequences decided by the anti-corruption agency. That he is a minister or governor of a state should not be an excuse from facing the punishment he is to receive according to the Constitution of Nigeria.
Treating All Citizens Equally
Treating any offender in the country equally will help reduce corruption. Nobody is above the law and any who acts contrary to it should be given the punishment that he or she deserves. That she is the Minister of Aviation or Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria should not count in this case. If any minister or head of state is given the punishment he deserves for corruption, others will learn and separate themselves from any corrupt practice.
Conclusion
Corruption is a cankerworm that has eaten deep into the fabric of Nigeria. Discussed are the many faces of corruption, causes, effects, and the possible solutions. Because of the classic nature of this article, it's upgraded version appears in a book "WE THE PEOPLE - Building a New Democracy in Nigeria as a Model for Africa". The upgraded version appears as the chapter five. The book is written by eighteen great authors, get it and read more. The book is displayed after the reference section.